AuthorTopic: Color Problems - NEC P221W Display (Read 11912 times)

You posted again but I don't see it now...I have been dealing with an external drive that is threatening to crash or something so had a bunch of backups to do. I also stayed up very late last night so I could download the videos Tony talked about so I was moving slow today. Big download and I waited to do it after midnight when my internet service has free time until 5 AM.

I looked at a photo with a lot of red a couple of different ways on the laptop - in Preview and in iPhoto and it looks too red in both of those. I don't have Photoshop or Lightroom on the laptop so I can't see if there is a difference there but in the Apple type applications it is too red.

You posted again but I don't see it now...I have been dealing with an external drive that is threatening to crash or something so had a bunch of backups to do. I also stayed up very late last night so I could download the videos Tony talked about so I was moving slow today. Big download and I waited to do it after midnight when my internet service has free time until 5 AM.

I looked at a photo with a lot of red a couple of different ways on the laptop - in Preview and in iPhoto and it looks too red in both of those. I don't have Photoshop or Lightroom on the laptop so I can't see if there is a difference there but in the Apple type applications it is too red.

Roberta,

Up a bit late myself today. From what you've said so far, it seems that anybody's sRGB image is showing incorrectly on the laptop irrespective of which application is used to display it on the laptop screen. And by sRGB image I mean an image with sRGB data, whether with an embedded ICC profile or not.

The likely cause of that is the one thing that is common to all applications on the laptop that can show images - and that one thing would be the system profile and I'm sorry to say that I don't where that lives on a Mac but maybe Googling "ColorSync" might get you somewhere. Do you know if there's any way to undo your recent monitor profiling and revert somehow to the laptop default? Someone here should be able to tell us, I would have thought. Anybody?

The point being that the laptop default profile should not be too far off - ceretainly not nearly as bad as what you're reporting. Especially for plain old sRGB images. If the default is OK (not necessarily perfect) then the problem lies in the monitor profile (as it now) - not in the desktop, not in the desktop applications and not in any images properly created thereby.

These were run through Save for the Web in PS at different settings - on the laptop there is a difference between the first and the others, the last two look pretty much the same even though the settings were a little different. There is a difference in Firefox (on Flickr), in Safari (on Flickr) and in Preview. BTW before I forget to mention it I did not have this color difference when I was using my old Dell Monitor but it is not wide gamut. Do you see a difference in these photos? All the same except for the way I ran them through Save for the Web.

In this forum they all look the same to me in this post but maybe because I've been looking at it too long. I was all set to go to sleep tonight when it occurred to me that some of the problem could be the way I am saving for the web but now that I see there is no difference appearing here I am ready to bang my head against a wall. There is a difference in Flickr and in Preview on the laptop so it doesn't make sense. Will play with this again in a day or two and see what happens. Going to get some shut eye and try to forget about this for a while.

All three of those look the same to me viewed in my browser on my Dell Windows laptop. Using Firefox with color management turned on, standard LCD screen, display calibrated with the original i1 Display. Firefox defaults to sRGB for untagged images so all three are being viewed in the sRGB color space. Then downloading the full-sized images and opening them in ACDsee shows a difference depending on the default profile selected. The tagged sRGB image doesn't change but the two untagged images become much more red and saturated when the default profile in the viewer is set to aRGB or ProPhoto. There's significant loss of detail and blocking in the tomatoes. Setting the viewer's default profile for untagged images to sRGB makes them all look the same again.

I too downloaded the three images. They all look virtually the same in my applications because the image data appears to be the same in all three. I also looked in ColorThink and each image is color-clipped at several areas of the sRGB 3D color-space, mostly reds, also blues and even some almost-whites. Probably due to a relative-colorimetric conversion from ProPhoto to sRGB color space.

My only suggestion is to always embed an ICC profile, otherwise any viewer's app will do what it wants with your image rather than using your own profile - even if it's just sRGB. You've already seen that with my yellow flowers earlier. The right-hand image data was in ProPhoto color space and the browser showed it as sRGB. I'll try to explain why . . .

Let's say the actual color of the flower in "independent" space is X,Y,Z. In a wide gamut RGB space that might be 150, 150, 25. In sRGB that same color appearance might be given as 200, 200, 15. If you display a wide gamut file with a pixel at 150, 150, 25 on your sRGB monitor without an embedded profile, the pixel will look wrong - mainly it will look un-saturated and even a bit color-shifted . . . because the RGB numbers of 150, 150, 25 are not the correct ones for the afore-mentioned actual XYZ color. Steve has described the opposite of that effect where sRGB color values become more saturated in appearance when used in wider color spaces.

Have you (Roberta) considered using the sRGB emulation setting on your wide gamut monitor? But I suppose the wider gamut is more useful for soft-proofing print files?

Let's say the actual color of the flower in "independent" space is X,Y,Z. In a wide gamut RGB space that might be 150, 150, 25. In sRGB that same color appearance might be given as 200, 200, 15. If you display a wide gamut file with a pixel at 150, 150, 25 on your sRGB monitor without an embedded profile, the pixel will look wrong - mainly it will look un-saturated and even a bit color-shifted . . . because the RGB numbers of 150, 150, 25 are not the correct ones for the afore-mentioned actual XYZ color. Steve has described the opposite of that effect where sRGB color values become more saturated in appearance when used in wider color spaces.

A tiny bell is ringing in my mind and Steve provided the clue:

If you have profiled your NEC to a wide gamut color space then an sRGB image without an embedded profile will show up more saturated on the NEC screen. That is to say that a red from your latest image e.g. RGB 245, 52, 1 is well-saturated. Those same RGB numbers shown on a wide-gamut monitor would be expected to look just as you have described.

Now if you show an image with an embedded sRGB profile on your laptop, it should look OK, which I believe you have effectively said earlier. If an image with an embedded sRGB profile on your laptop does not look OK, then the application displaying the image is not color-managed.

After playing around with this last night I think I need to figure the best way to convert to sRGB and stick with that. For some of the photos depending upon how I started out when converting even checking "embed profile" did not seem to make a difference so perhaps it is really not embedding the profile depending upon other settings. This is what I probably need to sort out.

When I first got the display nearly everything I viewed on the web seemed overly saturated regardless of which target I used. I recently upgraded the firmware for the Spectraview and that seemed to improve what I see on the screen - once I recalibrated. It seems obvious there is something that happens depending upon what settings I use in Photoshop "Save for the Web". It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me because right now I feel like I am pushing buttons and crossing my fingers. I have some photos that really looked bad when I tried to convert them for the web and I want to retry them to see what happens. If I can just get the way I set things really established in my mind I may be able to muddle along with posting to my Flickr project while I am learning more about color. Regardless of how I set things up in Save for the web the photos all look fine on the NEC. It appears that even when I do something that looks terrible on the laptop the NEC seems to be able to translate it properly, does that make sense? I did notice with some of the settings I applied last night, viewing those in sRGB on the NEC (from the desktop in Preview), that they appear a bit more vivid and when those photos are viewed on the laptop the color appears more "correct". So perhaps I am getting close to a temporary band-aid to use? I mainly use Lightroom and the recommendation is to use ProPhoto as the working setting.

I did start watching the Camera to Print to Screen videos last night but only got through the first two. The bantering between the two men gets a bit tiresome so I hope the entire 12 hours isn't that way. I'm sure there is very good information in these videos and I am going to work my way through the entire series eventually but it's a lot of material to digest and will take a while I am sure.

I certainly appreciate all of the help I am receiving it's a relief to be getting a little closer to being able to work this out.

The likely cause of that is the one thing that is common to all applications on the laptop that can show images - and that one thing would be the system profile and I'm sorry to say that I don't where that lives on a Mac but maybe Googling "ColorSync" might get you somewhere

Opening Colorsync Utility on a Mac and clicking on the Profiles tab there is a list under System: Adobe RGB (1998), generic CMYK Profile, Generic Gray Gamma 2.2 Profile, Generic Gray Profile, Generic RGB Profile Generic XYZ Profile. Clicking on one of those brings up Profile Information on the right hand side. For sRGB IEC61966-2.1 it shows the Path System/Library/ColorSync, etc., Class: Display, Space RGB, PCS:XYZ, Version: 2.1.0 date, created and size. There is also a Lab Plot. Don't know if that the answer.

There are also additional topics below that Computer - which is where the Displays list lives. Under displays are the Monitor calibration profiles that have been done via the Xrite iOne. There is also a Menu tab at the top of the ColorSync window for Profile First Aid. It verifies the contents of ICC profiles installed on the computer. Errors are reported if any profiles do not conform to the ICC profile specification. When I click "verify" that it says that all is well.

Here's what most people do:When saving images for web convert to sRGB and save with the profile embedded. This is standard procedure. How you do this is up to you: you can convert in photoshop, or use something like Lightroom or Save for Web that converts on the fly. If you work in a big working space like proPhotoRGB, you may notice that you loose some of the saturated colors when converting because they have to be squeezed into the smaller sRGB space.

Here's what you can expect:

1. Viewing the images in color managed applications (safari, photoshop):The system should convert between sRGB and the screen profile. Colors should be consistent between systems with some slack for different viewing conditions/white points etc.

2. Viewing in non-color managed applications:Generally apps will send data directly to the screen so wide gamut monitors will look more saturated, screens that are close to sRGB should still look reasonably close. This is also what happens if you don't embed a profile or if the profile is stripped when you upload it to a sharing service like Facebook.

This thread is confusing because your laptop should not be showing more saturated images than you wide gamut NEC when things go wrong. Generally people complain about the opposite issue — untagged images look too saturated on the wide gamut monitor.

I would first test the two systems together in an identical controlled situation. Save an sRGB jpeg with the profile embedded. Having a good test image that you use consistently is helpful—I like the old PhotoDisc image available here: http://www.normankoren.com/printer_calibration.html Don't upload it anywhere. Just open it in safari on both systems directly from disk. If everything is working correctly they should not look very different. If the laptop is still showing hyper-saturated colors, I would suspect there is an issue with the monitor profile. When you look in System Preferences/Displays under the color tab, is the correct profile selected? It should be the profile you made with the i1. Does switching to the default profile help?

I've run multiple tests - no matter what, if I embed the color profile then it is overly saturated. I have a Flickr friend who has the same monitor but slightly newer and larger - haven't chatted with her about this in quite a while but she was having the exact same problem. Her solution at that time was to save in sRGB, embed the profile and if it looked overly saturated she would use Picnic or whatever Flickr's photo enhancement is/was called and would desaturate the image a bit from there.

I tried changing the profile by using the built in Mac calibration but see no difference in the images I transferred to the laptop - they are still over saturated.

I couldn't seem to locate the image you suggested that I download - I did find a page where it was mentioned but I couldn't find the download by clicking on any of the links on that page.

Thanks Ted. I am beginning to think there is no solution for this problem. I don't particularly want to have to purchase another monitor but I may have to do that eventually or not photograph anything with much red. Wonder what happens with the photos I already have in my files that were processed via this monitor if I make a monitor change? It is kind of irritating because originally these monitors were given good reviews for photographic work.

Roberta, what are you seeing on that page when you mouse over the image? Does it look super-saturated before you mouse over, after you mouse over or both? Is it the same or different on your laptop and desktop.

I'm running a NEW PA241w, which is also wide gamut, along side an Apple Cinema Display. The image on that page behaves the way I expect it to on both monitors. It looks normal and becomes much more saturated when I mouse over.

I personally feel that you are being misled but I am happy to bow out of this thread.

Tony Jay

Tony,

Re-reading one of my posts above, it looks I was momentarily confused about the direction of saving images, implying that they were edited on the laptop and sent to the desktop. Embarrassing, that.

Please don't bow out.

Quote from: Roberta

Thanks Ted. I am beginning to think there is no solution for this problem. I don't particularly want to have to purchase another monitor but I may have to do that eventually or not photograph anything with much red.

Wonder what happens with the photos I already have in my files that were processed via this monitor if I make a monitor change?

I think that we can all agree that the problem is in the laptop. Your images look good on all our stuff and OK on your non-wide gamut monitor (the Dell?), which implies that your images are OK and that it would be inadvisable to edit them to look good on the laptop which is somehow failing to render images correctly.

It is the same on both. Where the problem only occurs is when I transfer photos from the desktop with the NEC monitor to the laptop with the ICC profile embedded. If I remove the ICC profile then the photos are not over saturated but may be very slightly desaturated but that could be the difference in screen since everything looks better on the NEC.

Roberta, what are you seeing on that page when you mouse over the image? Does it look super-saturated before you mouse over, after you mouse over or both? Is it the same or different on your laptop and desktop.

I'm running a NEW PA241w, which is also wide gamut, along side an Apple Cinema Display. The image on that page behaves the way I expect it to on both monitors. It looks normal and becomes much more saturated when I mouse over.

Please don't back out I understand what you are saying.That was my hope when I purchased the monitor but this seems to be a fairly gnarly problem without an easy fix. The more input the better.

A neighbor down the road has an iMac I think I will try to contact him today to see if I can go to his place to view the photos from his machine. I don't know if he is calibrated but it will give me some idea. I will look at the photos on Flickr and will load the ones from the desktop machine on a thumb drive and see how they look on his machine viewed from preview. He may have gone away for the weekend but will check in a little while to see if he will be around.

Re-reading one of my posts above, it looks I was momentarily confused about the direction of saving images, implying that they were edited on the laptop and sent to the desktop. Embarrassing, that.

Please don't bow out.

I think that we can all agree that the problem is in the laptop. Your images look good on all our stuff and OK on your non-wide gamut monitor (the Dell?), which implies that your images are OK and that it would be inadvisable to edit them to look good on the laptop which is somehow failing to render images correctly.

It is easy for confusion to arise in these web conversations. If there is a way to fix the laptop that would be great. I think as I mentioned earlier if I try viewing my images on our friend's computer that might help me check the problem.

Here's my understanding: On the desktop computer, images with embedded profiles look good on the NEC and OK on the Dell(?). If that is the case, the following images (with embedded profiles) should all work on the desktop computers' monitors and look the same:

sRGB

aRGB

ProPhoto

They should also look OK on your neighbor's Mac. And they do look the same in this post preview on my computer.

Do they all look over-saturated on the laptop, still? Is there any application on the laptop that opens them all correctly?

How about we all stop considering images without embedded profiles, unless for testing purposes?